Southerners Up In Arms Over Black Concept Artist Who Will Burn, Bury The Confederate Flag

An African-American concept artist has decided to celebrate Memorial Day this year by burning and burying the Confederate flag, according to the grio.

The artist, John Sims, 47, lives in Sarasota, Florida, and plans to orchestrate the event across the entire former Confederacy. Predictably, he’s drawn criticism from a number of anti-American groups, who call his move “divisive.”

A Symbol For Slavery And Treason

Many rightly see the Confederate flag — actually the Confederate battle flag, but the difference is a moot point — as a symbol for the Old South, and associate it with slavery, white supremacy, oppression of blacks and Africans, state-sponsored terrorism and lynchings.

“Inflaming Old Divisions”

Sims, who’s organizing the event, hopes to make people “reflect upon and critique the complex nature of the Confederate flag as a lasting symbol of terror.” Sims also wants to stage a funeral for the flag in all 11 states that made up the former Confederacy, including Kentucky and Missouri.

This doesn’t set well with some groups, however. Ben Jones, the spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said that it was “not only terribly offensive, but astonishingly idiotic,” and, “This sort of thing merely inflames old divisions.”

Jones added that for every flag Sims burns, “we will put 10 more up.”

Sims wasn’t deterred.

We are in America, and people have the right to fly whatever flag [they want]. And I have the right to bury whatever flag, and to burn whatever flag.

He called the flag “toxic” and said, “There’s a notion of ‘Southern Heritage’ and who owns [that], but a very important part of Southern culture is the African-American experience.… The Confederate flag is a flag of terror from its use by the Klan in the ’20s to the anti-civil-rights movement in the ’50s and ’60s,” Sims said.

The flag is almost too toxic to handle, and for those who do, I’m suspicious of their engagement. Are you in denial?

Given the war ended 150 years ago and they still haven’t let go? Denial may not be the proper word.